Tuesday, January 01, 2008

RELATIONSHIPS: Why Should I Wait?

Some people do find relationships early in life that will last a lifetime, while others may date for some time before they realize that they weren’t made for each other. Either way, the pressure to “lose yourself” in the relationship or “express your feelings” in more intimate, physical contact increases the longer you stay together. How do you maintain your purity in a long-term relationship?

Here are some things to remember:

1. Resist the temptation to be together all the time. Don’t dump your friends or forget that there are other things in life. Give the other person room to be away from you and develop their own interests, as well as taking time yourself to do the same.

2. Continue to develop yourself, your own interests, and your future. Being in a steady relationship can do some great things for a person’s self-esteem, but there is also the temptation to define yourself in respect to your relationship more than being a person on your own as well. Continue to grow as an individual.

3. Have real conversations. The greatest thing that you can learn from a longer relationship is how to truly communicate. More than anything else, be excited to get together and talk about anything and everything.

4. Avoid being in situations that will lead to sexual temptation. It is easier to avoid situations where you will be tempted than it is to stop something that is starting to go too far. Spend time in groups. Limit your time alone and spend it in places where temptation will not be encouraged. Homes where the parents are gone are a bad scene.

Why Wait to Have Sex?

Most of us have heard over and over all the physical risks of having sex before marriage—Aids, STDs, pregnancy, etc. We have also heard many of the spiritual ones—the Bible tells us not to, guilt, it is a sin, etc. But having sex before marriage can also affect you psychologically the rest of your life as well. (Scary!) One of the main developmental points of being an adolescent is learning how to relate properly with others. Being sexually active too early in your life ca not only mess your life up in the short run, but more significantly, in the long run as well.

Sexual activity can literally short-circuit your relationships. Too often sex can be mistaken for intimacy. Believe it or not, this is a big problem for married adults as well as for teenagers. When people don’t learn how to be intimate with one another – meaning that they can bare their souls and hearts t one another without fear – then they never really learn to be honest with themselves. Healthy, close relationships allow us a mirror in which to see ourselves. When improper sexual connection clouds this mirror, it has taken over the relationship between the two people as well as their understanding of who they are as individuals. As a result, this ability to relate to others never matures and all of our relationships are affected.

Some people resort to sex in order to avoid dealing with loneliness, low self-esteem, insecurity, fear, and other problems that will only get bigger and worse as life goes on if not death with earlier in our lives. This is why God has told us to wait until we are married. It is to make sure that we are “grown up” enough to enjoy it as He has designed it so that it can be a pleasure rather than a crutch.

Thus, if you really love the other person, you will give them the time to develop and grow up rather than short-circuit them to meet your own desires. This is also why they say, “True love waits.”

Think twice

I am convinced that the human heart hungers for constancy. In forfeiting the sanctity of sex by casual, nondiscriminatory “making out” and “sleeping around,” we forfeit something that we cannot well do without. There is dullness, monotony, and sheer boredom in all of life when virginity and purity are no longer protected and prized. – Elisabeth Elliot

Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still. – Robert Sternberg

Something God Has Promised You Love is patient.1 Corinthians 13:4

What If You Didn’t Wait?You may already have had intimate relations with your steady and you are wondering what to do. It is often harder to go backwards to a friendship once you have stepped over the boundaries into sex. If your steady isn’t willing to move back to friendship, you may have to break things off.

No matter what, you can receive forgiveness from God because of what Jesus did for you on the Cross. His death covers all sins, including the sin of sex outside of marriage. But when you come to Jesus, it means you are changing directions. That means you need to stop having sex and begin living a new way. This may seem very hard. The Bible actually says it is impossible in your own human strength. However, before you get discouraged, you need to know that God will make it possible with His strength if you ask Him. The Christian life is meant to be lived out of God’s strength and not your own.

Remember this: God loves you, and whom He declares clean is whiter than snow. When you are forgiven, God declares you clean. Don’t let feelings of shame fool you into thinking that it is too late for you to live right and to marry happily.